Atelier Yumia: The Alchemist of Memories & the Envisioned Land Review

It seems every long running Japanese role-playing series is destined to go through a metamorphosis of sorts, turning from tried-and-true mechanics for new, bolder pastures. Recent Final Fantasy games have eschewed turn-based combat for open-world action, and last year’s JRPG darling Metaphor ReFantazio skipped the Japanese high school setting of its forebears for a fantastical one, for instance.

It’s now the Atelier series’ turn. Known for lighthearted stories starring magical girls called Alchemists, Atelier has gained a sizable following of devoted fans but has yet to reach mainstream success – though the previous trilogy, Atelier Ryza, was a huge step in the right direction. With Atelier Yumia: The Alchemist of Memories & the Envisioned Land, developer Gust has set ambitious goals with a massive, puzzle-filled open world and plentiful mechanics pulled from the survival game genre.

A Comfy, Colorful Cast

Atelier Yumia introduces a new setting and protagonist. Much like the other games, you take control of a magical Alchemist girl named Yumia capable of manipulating mana – the remnants of memories and souls – to create physical objects like weapons, magical items, and even chairs. Yumia is a sincere young woman, wracked with self-doubt about whether following in her Alchemist mother’s footsteps was the right choice or not.

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Atelier Yumia brings a new, fantastical world and a new Alchemist protagonist.

Alchemy, you see, was responsible for the fall of the Aladissian Empire many years ago, and more recently the cause of a major explosion that resulted in many tragic deaths. Almost everyone distrusts Alchemists, and when they learn Yumia is one, they treat her with superstition and fear.

Regardless, Yumia is hired by a research team to help them uncover the mysteries of the fallen Aladissian Empire, sending you off on an adventure through monster-filled wildernesses to unlock the truths of Alchemy. A brother-sister pair are assigned to keep Yumia under watch, but it isn’t long before they – and another three colorful characters that join your party – fight alongside her to disprove the stigma surrounding Alchemists and prevent further disasters from ne’er-do-wells.

The plot itself is as one dimensional as the handful of evil, bestial antagonists it throws at you, and it spends a bit too long sending you on wild goose chases before advancing the plot – especially in the final third. Thankfully, Atelier Yumia centers this plot around the six heroes and their backstories, and they’re a likeable bunch with tragic backgrounds and intriguing personal stories to see through.

Each one of them grew on me. For example, I disliked the bad boy Rutger when he first joined the gang, but a dozen hours later both his shady antics and solemn backstory endeared me to him. The same was true for the overly timid puppygirl Lenja; annoying at first, but I soon found myself proud of how far she’d come as we ventured deeper into dangerous lands.

Don’t get me wrong: they’re all stuck firmly within anime tropes and talk far too much, but that’s to be expected with the lighthearted nature of the Atelier series. A comfortably colorful cast set within a thin narrative is what Atelier Yumia offers, and for many – including myself – that’s more than enough for this type of JRPG.

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(1 of 2) While not particularly deep, all the core characters are delightful in their own way.

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While not particularly deep, all the core characters are delightful in their own way. (left), For some reason, the camera often has trouble centering on the female characters’ faces. (right)

That said, I could have done with less fan service surrounding the four female characters in the party. I understand recent Atelier games have that kind of element to them, but when every cutscene featuring the mercenary Nina frames her ridiculously-sized bust, or when the camera pans to give near-upskirt shots of Yumia as she crawls through dilapidated ruins, I couldn’t help but feel that it diluted the strength of their character arcs.

Chasing Trends

Your adventures with this cast will take you through four distinct zones filled with an abundance of monsters, an insane amount of resources to collect, plentiful puzzles, plots of land to build bases on, and ruins that unlock hundreds of question marks on your map when Yumia clears the overflowing mana within by doing a magical dance.

From the green cliffs of the Ligneus region to the pastel pinks and blues of the Sivash region and beyond, I enjoyed whipping out the Photo Mode to take some environmental shots of a once great civilization returned to nature. Without the Photo Mode, however, Atelier Yumia floods the screen with resource icons that muddle the atmosphere somewhat; as such, I wished there was a dynamic HUD to hide UI elements until I wanted to see them.

The content packed into these environments may sound familiar to you. Collecting resources brings to mind popular survival games like Rust and Palworld. The abundance of puzzles spread throughout look like they were pulled straight from The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild and its sequel, and revealing the map by visiting specific locations is a tired staple from countless open world games.

Unfortunately, it all feels derivative and undercooked. There’s such a glut of resources used for the Synthesize mechanic – more on that later – that seeking out specific materials never felt like a necessity; at the same time, puzzles that award skill points were all rudimentary and repetitive as there’s only a few different types. Whacking a couple of switches here, solving a simple circuit puzzle there, all of it lacks an ounce of creativity to give you even a minuscule shot of dopamine for solving them.

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Clearing the overflowing mana in a region unlocks dozens of locations to visit on your map.

Likewise, the base building mechanic falls short. More patient and creative Atelier players than I will surely be able to make sprawling works of art for Yumia and her pals to hang out in, but there’s little utility to these bases outside of a place to craft and store items. This isn’t the kind of game where you have to defend against encroaching monsters or frequently return to stock up on supplies, as a convenient fast travel system makes building more than one base pointless. The entire mechanic almost feels tacked on, like Gust wanted to make sure Atelier Yumia made it into the popular base-building category on Steam.

Worse still, many of the rewards for side quests and exploration tie back into base building. I was let down when I received a recipe for a set of chairs after completing the entire exploration checklist for the Ligneus region. As a result, the mechanics tied to the open world feel like proof-of-concept for an inevitable sequel – and fodder to sift through while you listen to a Podcast or watch YouTube.

I do, however, have to give Atelier Yumia credit where it’s due: I wasn’t penalized for neglecting these mechanics after thoroughly exploring them in the first two regions. I could still hop from story beat to story beat, collecting a few materials here and there, without suffering much during the rare boss fight.

Synthesizing Sleeping Potions

Tying these undercooked mechanics together is a Synthesis crafting system unique to the Atelier series. Yumia, you see, can create just about anything you can imagine by doing her magical dance at an Alchemist’s altar. This includes armor, weapons, magic spells, quest items, furniture, and so on.

The whole process threatened to put me to sleep after the first dozen hours as it requires far too many tedious steps. To craft, for example, a healing item to use in battle, you first have to find the recipe while out exploring. Then, you must gather the correct materials to craft it, and if you want to upgrade said item, you’ll want to find mana spots spread throughout the open world to collect the particles required to do so.

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The synthesis mechanic in Atelier Yumia ties many of the other mechanics together but it becomes tedious after a dozen or so hours.

After all that, you head over to an altar and select a handful of different bonuses before filling up three different cores that have a minimum of three slots in each with resources that imbue different skills and increase the quality of the item. You finally Synthesize and have to hop into another menu to equip the item; no auto-equip here.

The mere thought of Synthesizing weapons, magical sub-weapons, armor, and accessories for each of the six characters exhausted me. Throw in gem slots to manage, and this progression system quickly became a chore to drudge through every time battles got a little too tough.

Thankfully, there’s an auto-Synthesize option that does the thinking for you. Those with patience can absolutely break the combat even on the highest difficulty by seeking out the best ingredients to craft the most powerful items, yet I managed to take down the final boss on the Normal difficulty without too much trouble. Still, I would’ve enjoyed a more satisfying progression system rather than one I wanted to ignore.

Flashy, Chaotic Fun

Fortunately, Atelier Yumia does set itself apart with a fresh take on action-based combat. Three of your six characters – which you can swap between at will and whom have pretty capable AI – encircle the monsters you’re up against, strafing left, right, and between a front and back circle to avoid AOE attacks.

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Battles against a wide variety of monsters may not require much strategy but they are chaotically good fun.

When Yumia’s in the front circle, for example, she has four different attacks to pummel foes with her gun-staff and high-flying kicks with rocket powered high heels. In the back row, her gun-staff lets off volleys of bullets from a safe distance. If you – with any character – manage to stun a foe and switch to a magical attack to hit their weakness, you trigger a team-up attack; furthermore, perfect dodges allow you to swap into other characters for powerful follow-up hits.

The battle system plays almost like a rhythm game without the music: you’ll swap between characters, hit weaknesses, and strafe away from AOE attacks to an unheard beat. Despite some balance issues – the beginning region is ridiculously easy and boss fights spike in difficulty – performing Friend Actions and Precision Counters against Grim Beavers and Alchemy-warped foes bent on restoring the Adaliss Empire to glory kept me entertained through till the end.

Atelier Yumia: The Alchemist of Memories & the Envisioned Land manages to stand on its own two rocket-powered high heels through the strength of its comfortable cast and flashy, fun combat. I still wish the open-world puzzles, resource gathering, and base building weren’t so shallow and derivative of other games, even if Atelier Yumia doesn’t penalize you too much for not engaging with them. This isn’t the major shift toward the mainstream that the series needed: it feels like a proof-of-concept for future sequels, but if your expectations aren’t too high, you’ll have a great time exploring Adaliss with Yumia and her friends.

This review is based on a pre-launch build with code provided by the publisher.